Only Know You Love Her When You Let Her Go
by The Queen of Double Standards
Summary: If only I'd noticed how much I truly loved her.


**Only Know You Love Her When You Let Her Go**

_Staring at the bottom of your glass  
Hoping one day you'll make a dream last  
But dreams come slow and they go so fast  
You see her when you close your eyes  
Maybe one day you'll understand why  
Everything you touch surely dies  
_-Let Her Go by Passenger

I first fell in love when I was in high school. It wasn't when my feelings for her developed that I realized those feelings, though. It was afterward, when I had to put on a brave face. Her name was Miki. She was the sweet type of girl I'd always been drawn to in fictional pieces. She ran to my side if she knew I needed her, and she told me when she needed me. She cried when she was sad; she smiled when she was happy. She had a sincerity about her that I hunted for in every girl after her, even if I know that it was her sincerity that eventually led me to leave her. I knew that I was rarely honest myself; I hid from her when I was sad, I smiled even if I wasn't happy, I didn't tell her the times when I needed her most by my side. And in her sincerity, it was clear that she wanted to help me, and that it upset her that I wouldn't let her. So, after a mere two months, I wound up leaving her, making some excuse about schoolwork taking priority. Of course, when anyone would ask, I'd tell them that I left her because I simply wasn't interested anymore, and that it had been fun while it lasted but my feelings had been short-lived. I'll always know that was a lie, though, because I remember her even to this day, and though I denied it for the longest time, I know she was my first love. Of all the girls I've fallen for since, she's probably the one with whom I most wish I'd waited it through.

Mizki was the first girl I admitted to loving while I had feelings for her. Of course, when I fell in love with her, I was too terrified to tell her. As such, she failed to recognize my feelings for her and accepted Len's request for a relationship. She and I had become friends, near best friends, so I heard all about it. Finally, once she and Len had been dating for a month, I gathered my courage to confess my feelings for her. I'll never forgive myself for putting her in that position. It was clear how painful it was for her, because she had feelings for me, too, but she wasn't the kind of girl to cheat, nor was she the kind of girl to leave her boyfriend when he'd done nothing to merit it. So she stayed with Len, and, knowing how much it hurt her to be hurting me, I left her. I gave up on our friendship after another four months of lingering nearby and hoping their relationship would implode, and I lost all contact with her when she realized how selfish I was to leave my best friend over some relationship nonsense. She stayed with Len for the next two years of high school, and I spent the first year of that falling deeper and deeper in love with her.

My next relationship started five months before my graduation from high school, while my feelings for Mizki were still strong inside of me. Her name was Yukari, and she got close to me despite my baggage. I knew she had feelings for me, so I asked her to date me. I didn't assume anything would happen really; I figured that, once we began dating, she'd realize that she wasn't as interested in me as she thought, and she'd break up with me. But she didn't, and she was great for the eight or nine months we wound up dating. Yukari was exciting, outgoing, and made me a better man. She told me it was okay to love Mizki, but I'd have to get over her eventually. She waited patiently for me to move on, for me to fall out of love with Mizki and in love with _her_, and I didn't realize until the end of our second month in college and university, mine and hers respectively, that I _had_. I'll never forgive myself for letting her follow me to the city I relocated to for college in order to pursue our relationship, because I broke up with her one month into the new school year. I hadn't fallen in love with her, I believed, even though she loved me so dearly. It wasn't fair of me, and I was giving her a proper chance to find someone and be happy. I didn't realize until that month later how desperately in love with her I truly was, and I was too proud to run back to her and tell her. I wish I had.

It wasn't until my third year of college that I found someone else. Her name was Gumi, and we'd been friends since the first year of college. She'd had a boyfriend the entire time and had only recently broken up with him. I'd never thought of her that way because of her relationship with Dell; I'd made my mistake with Mizki, and I wasn't letting myself anywhere near that again. At that point, though, I'd grown tired of being single, and I could imagine Gumi and I together. I was the one she always ran to after a fight with Dell, after all. I was the one she'd grown dependent on, the one she talked to when she had a problem she didn't think Dell was able to help her with. I was the one she cuddled with when our group watched movies and Dell wasn't around, the one she called when she was drunk and needed someone to come save her, the one who always knew how to make her smile. I'd always felt as though she'd secretly had feelings for me, and for that month we dated, I thought that feeling was right. It wasn't, though, and she ended up breaking up with me when she realized she couldn't move on from Dell and needed to fight harder for him. I knew I loved her, but I didn't tell her. I accepted the breakup and remained as her friend, as painful as it was.

The one who helped me move past that pain was Miku. I still don't remember meeting her. Our relationship started off as a drunken one-night stand a few weeks after Gumi and I had broken up, after all. And I'll confess, it was selfishness that led me to continue a relationship with Miku after that. I hoped it would help Gumi believe I had no feelings for her, because I'm evidently not someone who learns from mistakes of the past. I'd hoped to keep Miku around to stop myself from being lonely until I finally found someone I could fall in love with properly. Miku called me out on this, though. She pointed out the walls I'd built up, yelled at me for refusing to trust her, forced me to tell her what heartache it was from the past that kept me from committing to her. In the end, her harshness was what broke through to me, and afterward, she showed me her tenderness when I broke downing sobbing and was greeted by her warm arms. With everything out in the open, including my ongoing feelings for Gumi, I let the wounds breathe, and they slowly healed. Miku and I date for five years after that, until, finally, she confessed to cheating on me once, while drunk at a party. I knew it meant nothing, but, with her confession, I realized that my walls hadn't been crashed down, that they were still standing there, and I used it as an excuse to get rid of her. If being in love with someone risked bringing me this much pain, I wanted nothing to do with it. I chased her out and built my walls up taller, so tall that I never thought anyone would find their way past them.

I dated Lily for seven months. She wasn't supposed to mean anything more than consistency, someone to keep me company when I was lonely or, and forgive my crudeness for this honest addition, horny. I didn't expect her to end up meaning anything, and she didn't until I realized I had to break up with her. I'd initially chosen her because she was Miku's opposite in most ways. She was soft-spoken, obedient, and let me get away with whatever I wanted. However, because of this, which was by no means intentional on her part, she wound up causing me to become guilt-ridden on many occasions. That was what eventually led me to break up with her, right after I'd come to the realization that I had fallen for her. I didn't want her to be held down by someone like myself, who was by no means a good match for her, no matter how much I wished I was. I wished I could stay by her side, but I needed someone more like Miku, who refused to deal with my crap and forced me to open my eyes and see how my actions and thoughts not only affected others but myself as well. So I broke her heart, resulting in breaking my own.

There was a chance, I believed, for happiness and finality when I met the love of my life, the woman who I'd one day come to wed and have children with, Cul. Gumi wound up introducing us; she was working with a local newspaper at this point, and Cul was part of some band she'd been interviewing. Cul reminded me a lot of Miku, but her baggage was heavy. She avoided my pursuits for months, which left me feeling humiliated many times, and I nearly gave up over and over again. But I knew by now what would happened if I did that; one glance at Gumi and I'd remember. So, finally, she broke down and accepted a date, after my three months of asking. We dated for four months before she broke up with me, but I'd learnt from the past and didn't accept that, because I knew in my heart that I loved her and she loved me. So I insisted that we try again, to work past whatever it was that made her want to run from me so desperately. She yelled at me, told me there was no point and that I'd only end up leaving her, like everyone else. I'd get tired of her bullshit, she told me. She wasn't worth it, she insisted. Eventually, she simply broke down into tears and tried to push me off when I attempted to hold her tight. I didn't let her go, though. Each time she pushed me off, I grabbed back onto her again and used my body to try to protect her from the entire world, even those painful feelings inside her. She and I wed five years later; after another four, we had kids.

It was eleven years later that she walked out our front door and didn't come back. And, God, did I love her.


End file.
